


Fifteen Steps

by padfootagain



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Marauders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 18:04:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20262259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/padfootagain/pseuds/padfootagain
Summary: It’s the end of the war, Sirius is back, but before going for his last mission, he had broken up with you, thinking he would never come back, and trying to protect you. But now that the danger has passed, what will happen?





	Fifteen Steps

Time is a strange thing. People tend to see it as a straight line going on forever, but it is not. It bends under the weight of stars and planets, it’s stretched and compressed in black holes. It twists and folds up and changes shape, and it doesn’t pass at the same rhythm everywhere in the universe. At some points it passes faster than others where it slows down forever until it’s almost still. There are places out of time. And then, there is our own way of dealing with time. Our own way of feeling it passing through us, an unstoppable stream carrying us through life until we reach the deadly waterfall at the end of the river.  
But if time passes the same way everywhere on earth it is not, on such a tiny scale that our planet is, in any way stretched by a nearby star or compressed by the weight of a nebula floating through the void next to us, it is because our own mind has a tendency to distort it. When we’re bored it seems that time passes more slowly. When we’re in a hurry, it flows faster. It is merely a trick of our minds, but it’s pretty spot on and fools us all every time.  
And Sirius knows it, but he won’t escape the trick now either. Time slides around him in slow motion. And it’s entirely your fault.  
He struggles to swallow as he spots you in the crowd. He hasn’t seen you in months. Not since he accepted this mission on the other side of the country. It was dangerous to say the least, one could have even said suicidal. That’s why he broke up with you first.  
He didn’t want you to mourn him. He didn’t need that. If he were to die in these mountains, he wanted you to go on with your life, find someone else, build a life of your own.  
The thing is, when he left, he didn’t think he would survive the mission. He didn’t think he would come back.  
So what is he going to do now?  
Now that he is back in London. Now that the war is over. Now that Voldemort is gone. Now that the Death Eaters have fled. Now that he is free to have the life he wants. Now, what is going to happen to him?  
He can hear Remus, Peter and James, all three of them on their way from tipsy to fully drunk, laughing behind him. He knows Marlene and Lily are close by. He expects to hear from Alice and Frank soon too. He drinks up the rest of his shot of firewhiskey, his grey eyes still fixed upon you.  
You’re laughing with Dorcas. You’re smiling, you’re laughing, you’re happy.  
You’re happy without him.  
He thinks about all these times he was hiding in the cold, all these nights he spent awake because he was too afraid to sleep. You were the only thought that got him through it all. You were what brought him home.  
He travelled further down his memory lane, back to Hogwarts. Back to the shy girl that you were back then. Back to the long nights spent talking and eating cookies. Back to the afternoon walks across the grounds. Back to the secret conversations bathed in moonlight. Back to your arms wrapped around him as you soothed the pain holidays had brought onto him.  
You have been guiding his steps through long nights for so long. He realizes then that it doesn’t matter if he can’t have you. You’ll always be with him. It will always be you.  
When he falls asleep, it is your face that will be drawn on his tired eyelids. When he wakes up in sweat after a nightmare, it is your voice he will hear to sooth his demons. When he wakes up, it is your eyes he will see first through dawn.  
It is you.  
It has always been you.  
It will always be you.  
He wants to go there, cross the room, and reach you. Through the euphoric crowd celebrating the victory against the Dark Lord, he counts the number of steps that separate the two of you.  
About 15, he’d say.  
15\. 15 steps, what a ridiculously immense distance. It’s only 15 steps, he could cross the distance in mere seconds, just a few strides, and yet it seems unreachable. Things could be back to normal, back to how they should be, and he could wrap his arms around you and forget about the rest of the universe and kiss you… Merlin, how he wants to kiss you… He closes his eyes and remembers how it feels. Your soft lips against his, moving with his like a dance you’ve mastered to perfection. He remembers how you taste. Mostly of joy, candlelight, parchments and rainy afternoons. Sometimes, you taste like stars too.  
And how you smell, Sirius can remember your fragrance it now as he takes in a long breath. Chocolate, candles, parchments, soft sheets, blue skies, wintery wind.  
He opens his eyes again, and they find your frame with ease, they have kept the habit of finding you in any crowd.  
And you’re smiling. And laughing. And you look happy.  
It’s the end of the war, the Wizarding World is free.  
Perhaps he should free you for good too.  
At first, he wanted to cross that ridiculous distance of 15 steps. But now, that he stares at you, he finds himself uncapable of doing so. After all, he did break up with you.  
When he came back, he asked Lily about you, and she didn’t mention any new boyfriend who would have taken his place. But then, how could he be sure?  
He isn’t sure it’s the right thing to do now.  
So he turns around, adds three more steps to these 15 that separate the two of you, and puts his glass down on the bar.  
“I’m heading home, I’m knackered,” Sirius informs his friends.  
As expected, James and Remus argue that it’s still early. They have won the war and are all still alive to celebrate it, they should get gloriously drunk. But Sirius shakes his head. And as his friends spot you in the crowd over his shoulder, they understand.  
“You should talk to her. You could get back together,” James advises, but Sirius sends him a glare that makes his friends fall silent.  
“I’m very tired, I just got home yesterday. I need some sleep. I’ll see you all tomorrow at Godric’s Hollow, right?”  
“Of course.”  
He can’t walk out without hugging his friends, his brothers. So many times, he thought he would never see any of them again. And now, here they are, all alive and well and out of the war. He can have them in his life still.  
But he can’t have you. Not now. Not ever again.  
He strides out of the bar in Diagon Alley. The street still bears the scars of the fights that raged here, the many shops that had to close either because their owners were scared, or killed, or mysteriously disappeared. It was empty during the last months of the war, but it’s buzzing with people again. The main passage, at least. Families coming to celebrate the victory, many wizards and witches gathered to try and believe that it’s all real. It happened. They’re all free now.  
But Sirius doesn’t want to be surrounded with people, right now. So he walks down the road, as he knows that it will be much quieter there, and readies himself to Apparate.  
Above his head, the stars shine a bright light, whitish against the inky sky for most of them. Stars too are a strange thing. Burning balls of gas lightyears away, and yet visible from here. It takes so long for light to travel these distances though, some of them are already dead when their light reaches the Earth. Sirius wonders how many have gone out already, lost in the cosmos, dying on their own, sending their light through space in one last spasm that won’t be seen before several millennia. He thinks it’s quite sad. They die on their one, with no one to see them disappear. And he knows how much it hurts to be alone, how terrifying it is to face death on his own. Maybe he does deserve that name of his after all, maybe, just like the stars, he was meant to fade away with no one by his side.  
He’s almost out of the crowd, he will Apparate in just a few seconds, when the voice that calls after him has the young man frozen on the spot.  
“Sirius!”  
It’s you. Of course, he knows it’s you. He would recognize your voice in a thousand shouts. He dreams of it every night.  
He turns around slowly. He can’t fake to not hear you. You’re not stupid. There’s no point in denying that you’re here. It won’t stop you from telling him whatever it is you have to say.  
Are you going to shout? To cry? To slap him? He reckons he would deserve your rage.  
You’re motionless in the street as he turns to you, the lampposts shedding a yellowish light onto your shape, getting caught as glimmering droplets in your hair.  
“Hey,” is all he manages to say.  
What else could he tell you? That he’s sorry for what happened, but he had to protect you? That he thought he would never have to face this situation because he never thought he would come back alive? That he loves you so much it hurts and burns every cell of his body and consume his heart and soul?  
What is the point?  
But instead of being met by your anger, instead of the burning sting of a slap across his cheek, or terrible words screamed and spitted to his face, you smile.  
You smile the brightest grin there is. One that lights up the dark so much more than any of these burning, old stars above your heads. One that blinds him so much he has to blink.  
Sometimes, looking at you feels like staring at the sun.  
Before he can move, you run to him, a proper, desperate run to throw yourself into his arms.  
And then your arms are wrapped around his neck, and you’re pressed against him and it’s almost too much.  
He has dreamt of this for months, and now… but… it isn’t right, is it?  
He can’t manage to properly think now, not when your breath tickles the skin of his neck, when your fingers are running through his hair, when your warmth flows from your chest to his, when he can feel your heartbeat against his own.  
So he just wraps his arms around you, and holds you close.  
Maybe it’s the last hug he will have from you. He expects then that when you break the embrace, you’ll beam up at him and tell him about this new life you’ve built with someone else. He just hopes he doesn’t know the man who owns your heart now. He was so proud and lucky when it was him who held it in his own chest. He never felt like he deserved it though, perhaps this new man is better than him.  
He reckoned it isn’t a hard goal to reach.  
He can’t refrain a smile. If you could read through his mind now, you would glare at him for thinking like this of himself. You’ve always insisted on him thinking more highly of himself. But seeds planted in one’s childhood are hard to shush and destroy.  
He pushes the thought away. None of this matters now. He holds you, for what he guesses is the last time. And he can’t allow anything else to exist in his world, not for now.  
You finally break the embrace and hold his face in your shaking hands, your eyes filled with relieved tears. And there it is again, that blinding grin of yours.  
“Oh Merlin, Sirius… I thought you were dead! Why didn’t you tell me you were back? How… Why didn’t you tell me anything for five months?! Do you have any idea how scared I was?!”  
“I couldn’t. I was undercover. I couldn’t put you in danger by writing to you. And they would have killed me if they had found out the truth. And I only came back yesterday.”  
“You really are a moron, you know that? You scared me so much!”  
You burrow your face in the crook of his neck, breathing in him. Firewhiskey, leather, fire, danger and a bit of twilight. It’s him. It really is him. No one can have this scent but him.  
But he gently holds your upper-arms, slowly pushing you away to break the embrace, and you stare at him.  
“Y/N… We can't…”  
He sighs and changes his mind.  
“Are you okay?”  
“Now that you’re here, yes.”  
“Don’t say things like that.”  
“What do you mean?”  
But he looks at you with a frown.  
“We broke up, Y/N. You can’t act like nothing happened, giving me hope like that…”  
You break out into laughter, and he merely quirks an eyebrow. What the hell is going on?  
“What, you mean… that fake excuse for a break-up you came up with? I’m not stupid, Sirius. You were just trying to push me away because you were leaving for this mission, that’s all there was to that.”  
“How can you know?”  
“You were crying on your motorbike. I know. I saw you by the window. Besides, it’s rather convenient to break up with me out of the blue five hours before leaving for a suicide mission.”  
He could deny it, but what would be the point? You’re right. About everything. He sheepishly looks down at his shoes.  
“Are you mad?” he asks in a shaky whisper. “I just thought… it had to be done, but I didn’t think anyone could come back from that mission. At least, if I broke up with you, you would… have not mourned me so much and you would have found someone else and… Have you found someone else?”  
There are tears rolling down your cheeks now, but Sirius doesn’t want you to cry. He’s never wanted you to cry. He would do anything to bring a smile back to your lips, anything at all…  
“You bloody idiot!” you shake your head. “Of course there’s no one else. What do you think? That making a tantrum is going to make me stop loving you? Do you really think I wouldn’t have been shattered if you had died simply because you broke my heart? I love you! It’s not a question of being together or not, it’s not a question of time passing by, or water running under a bridge. I love you. I love you so much. I’ll never stop loving you. Nothing and no one can change that.”  
It’s his turn to let a tear escape his grey eyes.  
“So… no one else then?”  
You shake your head.  
“No one. Just you.”  
“I don’t deserve you…”  
“Yeah, you do. You’re an idiot sometimes, but you’re such a good man, and I love you so damn much.”  
By now, you’re both a crying mess. There are strangers passing by around you, but you ignore them and they pretend like they can’t see you. Only a little girl in a red coat asks her mother why you and Sirius are crying.  
Because they’re in love and they can be together now. That’s all her mother answers. And it’s quite right too.  
“I love you too, you know?” Sirius whispers, running a hand through your hair. “I’ve missed you so much. But I thought… I saw you there in the bar and I… I thought maybe you… you were laughing and perhaps you were better off without me after all.”  
“Don’t ever say something like that. I knew you were back. Lily told me yesterday. Trust me, I haven’t laughed for all these months you were gone. I need you, okay? I don’t want anyone else.”  
“I’m not perfect.”  
“I know. I just happen to love your flaws too. That’s what they call real love, I reckon.”  
Finally, he wraps his arms around you again, burying his face in your hair, breathing you in, holding you so tightly it’s hard for you to breathe but your hold on him is just as desperate.  
“I do love your flaws too, Merlin help me with that,” Sirius moans in your ear, making you laugh.  
And it’s a very strange thing indeed, time. It passes, an unstoppable flow that carries moments after moments in its wake. But sometimes, it stops. As if it understood that some moments deserve a bit more time than others. And two people loving each other is quite one of these moments.  
So time stops. Oh, it will resume its flowing soon enough and make both of you move again, and soon dawn will break the stars above and replace them with a vivid blue sky. Strangers in the street will go home, and lie down, and repeat to themselves that the war is over, they can sleep without fear from now on.  
But right now, time stops, just so you and Sirius can hold tightly on each other for just a little longer. The number of steps between the two of you is down to zero, just the way it should be, and Sirius intends to keep it that way for as long as he can.


End file.
